


Doctor Strange, a study in Mirror Dimension manipulation

by startrekfan



Series: Doctor Strange's Powers [6]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Gen, Magic, Meta, Physics, Trippy, powers, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 02:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekfan/pseuds/startrekfan
Summary: A meta about Doctor Strange's powers.





	Doctor Strange, a study in Mirror Dimension manipulation

The blast Thanos threw went into the Mirrored Dimension, vanishing from ours completely! This sure is some 4th dimension work! Just like we drawing a dot on a paper sheet would sound miraculous to the “beings who live in the 2nd dimension” on the paper sheet! To them, what we drew would just “appear from nowhere”. That’s exactly what Strange does what manipulating the Mirrored Dimension, but with 3 dimensions. It’s as if he could manipulate inter-dimensional paths in the space of the 4th dimension, in other words, reality bending!

[Originally posted by brolinjosh](https://tmblr.co/ZzQUJj2bXduUy)

So far, we know a few things about the Mirrored Dimension (or Mirror Dimension). The first thing is that it’s a dimension that exists like a layer over our own dimension but a layer that doesn’t directly touches our dimension, despite being super close in the fourth dimension plane. Considering 4 dimensions, the Mirrored Dimension (according to my logic) would be in the same space as our dimension, however, they don’t interact because they aren’t in the same place on this 4th dimension. If we take that idea to 2 dimensions, that would be like two sheets of paper one over the other, their surfaces touch, however, their contents don’t interact, because in the 3rd dimension, they don’t occupy the same space. At the same time, if you placed these two sheets of paper together exactly side by side, making a drawn black line on one sheet of paper “continue” by joining with the other drawn black line on the other sheet, the “beings living in the 2nd dimension of the paper sheets would see the black line they knew becoming longer without explanation.  
It’s crazy, but it sort of makes sense. When we talk about dimension, we can’t just think about 3 dimension, specially in the MCU, where the Tesseract has been introduced and it represents the mathematic abstraction of how the 4th dimension would be if we could understand it, so yeah, Marvel is deep in the 4th dimension stuff. If you want to understand the concept better, there are many cool Youtube videos that explain it.

[Originally posted by thelostsmiles](https://tmblr.co/Zitejx2aZ6-Wv)

Anyway, another important thing we know about the Mirror Dimension is that whatever happens in there cannot affect out dimension (”the real world”). Actually, both our dimension and the Mirror Dimension are “real world”, however, as I mentioned, the Mirror one doesn’t interfere with whatever happens in our world, HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean sorcerers can’t open gateways to access the Mirror Dimension. They totally can open gateways to it because they can manipulate energy to distort THIS dimension by using the sling ring and once they’re in the Mirrored Dimension, they can use the sling ring to do the opposite and open a gateway back to our dimension. But we already saw sorcerers don’t need to use the sling ring to enter the Mirror Dimension, they just need it to get out. Maybe because sorcerers can affect THIS reality using their mind  **(Reality Bending)** buuuuut they can’t use reality bending to manipulate the Mirrored Dimension into affecting our dimension because well, the mirrored dimension doesn’t affect our reality, remember? That’s why they need the sling ring to get out. It’s as if from our dimension, sorcerers could affect the Mirrored Dimension (like an one way road) but the opposite is invalid. Not even sorcerers can affect our dimension from the Mirrored Dimension, that’s why they can’t get out.  
Of course more powerful sorcerers might know how to escape the Mirrored Dimension in the Marvel Universe, even without a sling ring, but we haven’t seen that yet.

What does this mean? It means that even if Strange didn’t have his sling ring, he still would be able to trap himself and his enemies inside the Mirrored Dimension, and unless his enemies had a way to get out through magic or technology, they would be locked inside the Mirrored Dimension forever. They could still kill Strange, sure, but yeah, they would be stuck and starve to death, since time apparently still affects the Mirrored Dimension (we see people and cars moving normally).

A design representing how the 4th dimension works. It would be possible to move the entire planes where tridimensional objects exist, ignoring any kind of interaction. Someone in the 4th dimension would be able to take everything out from a box without opening it and even manipulate different planes to move everything in the 3rd dimension without affecting how everyone inside the 3rd dimension notices it. Just like we can move a sheet of paper up and down and the “beings who live in it, in the 2nd dimension” wouldn’t notice, because the 3rd dimension is unknown and imperceptible to them.

[Originally posted by excellentexistence](https://tmblr.co/ZnIFBtzXJPfd)

So, if a hero or villain doesn’t have or know how to use a sling ring, if they can’t break through dimensions or travel through them, they are fated to lose to Doctor Strange, who can trap them inside said dimension until they starve or die of old age. Indeed, there are creepy things about the Mirror Dimension if you think about it. How many sorcerers must have gotten lost in there? Of course a sorcerer might be able to sense the presence of someone locked inside the Mirrored Dimension and rescue them (feel their presence because sorcerers are constantly opening gateways to the Mirror Dimension), but still, there might be many creatures or deceased sorcerers who got stuck there, as well as many objects from our reality that fell in there.

Doctor Strange can transport himself and others into the Mirror Dimension, he can leave it using his sling ring but he also can control the Mirrored Dimension WHILE BEING IN OUR DIMENSION and use it to push or to “swallow” enemies and objects/energy with it, like he did against Thanos. In the fight against the Titan, Strange apparently didn’t use the Mirror Dimension to reflect Thanos’ attack, but he used it to ABSORB IT, in other words, he sent Thanos’ blast to the Mirror Dimension and tried to swallow the Titan with it, but Thanos used the Power Stone and the Space or/and the Reality Stone to break the Mirrored Dimension wall Strange had “summoned” to our dimension.

The Mirror Dimension also seems to be “lighter” then our dimension, maybe that’s why it’s easier to bend reality INSIDE the Mirror Dimension, like Kaecilius and the Ancient One did, or even move walls of the Mirrored Dimension around, like Strange did.  
Reality Bending is a skill Doctor Strange has, still quite limited, but required for Stephen to move walls of the Mirror Dimension around. We can assume he’s powerful enough to do it, but still not powerful enough to bend OUR reality, like Kaecilius managed to do using Dormammu’s power.

[Originally posted by byk23](https://tmblr.co/ZSpgBk2Ea2ytt)


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